


Waking up alone

by Drago



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Break Up, Byron the Twink, Gallavich is endgame tho, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Make Up, is he really though, remember that Ian used to be a twink?, to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:08:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22114636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drago/pseuds/Drago
Summary: Ian tries to win his man back."You’ll be a road smear after I’m done with you, if you don’t leave us alone."
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich, Mickey Milkovich/Byron (Shameless)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 122





	Waking up alone

**Author's Note:**

> This is who I want Byron to be, but I'm pretty sure that's not who we will get.

When Mickey returns to the Gallagher house in the evening and says: “I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry”, Ian thinks they’re going to be alright. But Mickey doesn’t sleep in his bed, and he is gone in the morning. Debbie tells him Mickey went to work, even though it’s too early for that.  
But he comes back home every night, and that’s the most important thing. He ignores Ian’s calls and messages, comes back too late for Ian to still be awake because his meds knock him out for the whole night, but he is definitely there, even if Ian doesn’t see him. Debbie and Carl are the only ones who really interact with Mickey, but they refuse to talk to him about Ian. It feels like betrayal, and it makes Ian wonder if that’s how Mickey felt every time Mandy sided with him.  
But he’s got other things to worry about now. Mickey is still around when Ian wakes up on Saturday, and he is overjoyed. There’s so much he has to say to make Mickey understand that Ian is still very much committed to him, but the words get stuck in his throat when he sees a dark red spot on Mick’s neck. It’s a hickey. Ian has never been a fan of those, but he can recognize one when it’s on his boyfriend’s fucking throat, mocking him with it’s darkness against Mickey’s pale skin.  
“What the fuck is this?” he manages to choke out.  
Mickey ignores him, as he tends to do nowadays, but Liam is more than happy to explain everything, leading Ian to think that he might be the only person in the house who doesn’t know what’s going on with his own boyfriend.  
“Mickey is dating a glittery twink named Byron, and he apparently has some serious suction power.”  
Mick flips Liam off with a smirk, still not looking at Ian, because even scrambled eggs are more worthy of his attention.  
“You are my fucking boyfriend, you can’t date other guys.”  
“Boyfriend?” the dark haired man scoffs. “Hardly. I’ve been told that boyfriends aren’t supposed to shit all over you all the time.”  
“Who told you that?” he asks, because Mickey doesn’t have friends, and his family members would never say anything like that.  
Finally, Mick looks at him with a smile, “Byron did.”  
Ian is seething when he learns from Debbie that Mickey stayed home to get ready for a date, but at least he gets to see his competition through the window. Lip doesn’t let him go outside, and Ian can’t exactly fight him with a broken leg.  
Byron really is a twink who wears pink and drives a Vespa. He is fucking tiny, shorter than Mickey. The only thing he has in common with Ian is his red hair, and Ian can’t imagine Mick really liking him. It improves his mood for a second, there’s no way his boyfriend will leave him for someone like that.  
“He is really nice,” Debbie says when the source of their entertainment drives away on a _Vespa_. “I met him yesterday, and he carried my bags inside.”  
“Sure, but personality aside, twink-sized guys aren’t Mickey’s type,” Ian insists.  
Lip ruins his relatively good mood by saying, “Sorry to break it to you, Ian, but you were kind of a twink when you started hooking up.”  
“No, I fucking wasn’t!”  
“Yeah, you were,” Debbie sides with Lip, as if she even knew what a twink was back then. Ian just wobbles away, knowing that he will lose if he stays. He grew up into a hunk, if he can say so himself, and he doesn’t like to think about the past. He does sometimes like to think about fucking a young, rough Mickey while he wanks, but in his fantasies he is bigger than he was back then.  
He’d rather repress any memories related to Kash and Ned. His later hookups weren’t always great, but at least they weren’t chasing after underage guys.

After taking his evening medication, Ian drinks a lot of coffee and tops it off with a red bull. By the time he hears the Vespa approaching, he is almost crawling up the walls, his whole body buzzing with too much caffeine.  
Ian watches from his hiding spot as Mickey gives the twink a deep goodbye kiss, and for once luck is on his side because the twink stays put, waiting for Mickey to go inside the house. It would be cute, if Ian wasn’t so angry at the moment. He hobbles towards the guy when Mickey is out of sight. The twink _looks up_ at him, opening his mouth to say something, but Ian beats him to it.  
“Listen, I know Mickey’s dick is great, but you gotta...”  
“I don’t.”  
“What?”  
“I don’t know if Mickey’s dick is great because he doesn’t fuck me with it, but I’m happy you enjoyed it in the past. His ass is amazing though,” Byron fucking smiles at him, asking to be punched.  
“He lets you fuck him?!” it’s so outrageous that it didn’t even cross Ian’s mind.  
“Yeah, he does. I’m a fucking top, bitch. Not sure what you were trying to do here, but if you think that I’m afraid of a fucking cripple, then think again.”  
“What?!”  
“You’ll be a road smear after I’m done with you, if you don’t leave us alone.”  
“He is still living with me.”  
“Because he’s got not other choice, he told me all about you, you stupid fuck. Anyway, good talk, but I gotta dash now.”  
Byron is still smiling when he kicks Ian’s crutches away, making him go down hard. Ian has to watch him drive away on his tiny fucking Vespa from the ground, and it takes him almost fifteen minutes to get up.  
Jesus fucking Christ, Mickey sure knows how to pick them.  
By the time Ian finally manages to get inside the house – his whole body hurting from the encounter, Mickey is already asleep on the couch. That’s where he sleeps when Frank isn’t around. Either that or on the floor in Ian’s room.  
Ian wants to talk to him, but he knows there’s no chance of their conversation staying civil, and Debbie will murder him if Frannie wakes up. That, and he needs to figure out a new approach, because Byron doesn’t seem that harmless anymore. In the past, he used to be stupidly jealous of the girls Mickey slept with, but ever since the older man came out Ian never felt insecure about their relationship. He was the one doing the leaving, as unfair as it might be, and Mickey was the one who waited. Now, there’s someone ready to fight for Mick’s affection, and Ian doesn’t really know how to convince his boyfriend that he is a better choice.

He starts by buying rings. They aren’t anything spectacular since his budget is very limited, and he is sure they’ll have to resize Mickey’s ring because he doesn’t know the exact size, and he always forgets how small Mick’s hands really are, but he feels good about them.  
Carl is the one who helps him with his plan. Sure, it’s mostly because he wants to be there when shit goes down, but Ian appreciates it anyway. No one else was willing to help, Debbie went as far as to tell him to let Mickey and Byron enjoy their date. As if he could ever do that.  
Ian unapologetically crashes their date.  
Byron picks Mickey up again, probably because the older man doesn’t have a car (or a _Vespa_ ), but this time he comes up to the door, and they all get to see Byron in his small glory.  
“I can’t believe Mick is sleeping with a twink,” Lip says, eyes still glued to the front door, after the two left.  
“He is not a twink,” Ian grumbles.  
“I just saw the guy, he is definitely a twink.”  
“Okay, let me rephrase it. He is a bear in twink’s body. Trust me, I know, I talked to him,” he begrudgingly admits. “Come on, Carl.”  
To find out where they’re going, Ian had to go through Mick’s phone while the other man was showering. He wasn’t too pleased to see the dick/ass pics they exchanged, but it was even worse when he discovered that they are having real, friendly conversations, and that Byron is pretty funny when he isn’t threatening Ian.  
When Ian gets to the coffee shop, he immediately spots his target. They seem to be having fun, Mickey is laughing at something Byron said, and Ian can tell he isn’t faking it. He is enjoying himself and his company. Ian almost wants to back off, but that’s what got him in trouble in the first place. So he soldiers on, walking up to the pair with as much confidence as he can muster. Byron is the first one to notice him, of course he is.  
“Hello Ian, what are you doing here?” he pleasantly asks, like he isn’t on a date with Ian’s man.  
“I need to talk to… Mickey, let me explain.”  
“Fuck off, Gallagher.”  
“Mick, please, I can’t fucking live without you,” Ian begs, and Mickey finally gets up.  
“Outside,” he grunts.  
Byron follows them, and Ian has to stop himself from throwing punches. It’s enough that Carl will see him grovel, there’s only so much humiliation he can stand.  
“I love you,” he blurts out. “But I shouldn’t be making hasty decisions anymore. I freaked out because I didn’t think it through properly. I was thinking about Paula’s murder, and everything else was secondary. I know I shouldn’t have it done, but you have to believe me that I love you.”  
“Jesus, if it’s not your parents, then it’s your bipolar. You just have the endless supply of excuses, don’t you? You keep saying that you love me, but you act like a dick all the time.”  
“Words lose their meaning if you throw them around too much,” Byron adds from his spot.  
“No, Mickey, that’s not what… Okay, maybe that’s what I implied, but I don’t expect you to forgive me because I’m bipolar. I hope you can forgive me because I’ve been in love with you since I was fifteen, and I am ready to marry you. I just needed a bit more time. I can’t get on my knees right now, but...” he fumbles with the box to show Mickey the ring. “Mikhailo Milkovich, will you marry me?”  
Mickey looks at the ring, at Ian’s face and back to the ring.  
“Nah, man, I don’t think you get it. It’s not just about you not signing the fucking papers. It’s about you always choosing something else over me. If it’s not Monica, then it’s another man or your perfect little life – which you screw up without my help. You’re never honest about it either, and I’m fucking tired of being your second choice, and of you leaving all the time. So no, I won’t marry you.”  
“Do you want me to break his other leg, so he can’t stalk you?” Byron offers before Ian can fully comprehend what he just heard.  
“No need, let’s just ride.”

Ian genuinely thought Mickey would forgive him after seeing the ring. Not because of the ring itself, but because it’s a tangible proof of Ian wanting to be with him forever. And yet, Mickey didn’t have any problems with getting on a bloody Vespa with Byron and driving away.  
Ian doesn’t even pretend that he isn’t crying when he gets home, and this time his family is more understanding. He is surprised when no one tells him to give up on Mickey. Maybe they finally realized that no matter how much Ian dates, there’s only one person he can love.  
He has a dating app on his phone, he even has a profile which he used in the past, and he tries looking again. But everyone seems so bland in comparison with Mickey, and he knows it won’t ever work out.  
So he waits. Frank found his way to the couch tonight, so Ian waits in his… their room upstairs. He waits for a long time, nodding off every few minutes, but Mickey finally comes back.  
Ian still waits while Mick is showering, unable to be around him while he smells like another man. There’s more silence when Mickey makes himself comfortable on his makeshift bed, ignoring Ian’s presence. It’s suffocating, and Ian’s cheeks are wet even before he starts talking.  
“I always worry about hurting you, but I do it anyway, because I don’t think before I act,” he admits. “But I can promise you that I’m not doing it on purpose. I want to be with you, and I want to marry you, but I also want you to hold me accountable for the shitty things I do. I’m probably going to fuck up again, but I’m not going to leave or cheat on you. I never really thought that you could leave me, but… you can, you really can, and it’s killing me. Please, don’t leave me.”  
When Mickey doesn’t respond, Ian thinks the other man is already asleep, and his chance has passed. But then Mickey gets up from the floor and lies next to him, making sure he doesn’t jostle his broken leg.  
“I just want you to love me, why is it so hard for you?”  
“It’s not hard, but I’m so fucking selfish. I’m sorry, I’ll do better. You are worth it, don’t ever think you aren’t. It’s me, I fucked up, I didn’t think you really wanted to marry me.”  
“You’re the only person I could ever marry,” Mickey quietly admits, and Ian shivers when a warm hand covers his. “I’m sorry I hit you. It’s not the way we are anymore.”  
“No. No, but you did tell me to back off, and I didn’t. Let’s just… not do this in the future.”  
“Okay.”  
“Okay.”

***

(Byron doesn’t disappear from their lives because apparently he is more of a friend than a lover. When Ian tries to point out that friends don’t fuck friends, Byron just shrugs and says that he simply gave Mickey what he needed at the time.  
They hang out. Sometimes it’s just Byron and Mickey, which Ian isn’t too pleased about, but sometimes it’s all three of them.  
“Why do you dress like that?” Ian finally finds it in himself to address Byron, who is wearing leggings with an oversized, bright orange shirt.  
“It’s comfy. I like colors. And it gives me the upper hand when dealing with cocky shits like you,” Byron doesn’t look up from his salad, but Ian can see him smile. Maybe, once Ian finally gets over the fact that this man fucked Mickey – and fucked him good, they will become friends. Just… not yet.)


End file.
